British expats 'shocked' at price of essential item in Australia: 'Mental'

Yahoo

6 days ago

It's one of the main cost of living wallet-pinchers that most Aussies dread. For many households, filling up the car each week can be a budget strain, but several British expats had a shock at the bowser recently for an entirely different reason – they couldn't believe how cheap Aussie fuel is compared to the UK.
British expat Steff Littleford, currently living in Perth, took to TikTok to share her disbelief after seeing local fuel prices and converting the currency.
'Things that absolutely shock me in Australia. Petrol — 76p. Tell me why in the UK it's like £1.40, £1.50,' she said.
'76 f***ing pence a litre in Australia. Mental.'
Another UK expat Josie agreed, saying it was one of the 'biggest shocks' about moving to Australia.
'Fuel here is cheap compared to the UK. The average fuel price in Australia is around $1.60 [a litre].
'In the UK, when you convert it to Australian dollars, it comes out at $2.90. That's basically what you pay here in super remote regional areas.'
Aussie floored by petrol prices in the UK
Across the other side of the world, founder of CarExpert.com.au, Paul Maric, found himself stunned by the prices at a petrol station in the UK. He was touring the country in a twin-turbo V8 BMW M5 Touring car, which can be expensive to run, and took a photograph of the bowser showing £181.9 per litre — around A$3.76.
'I was shocked at how much Britons pay for fuel compared to Australia. People in Australia jump up and down about the cost of fuel, but in reality, we pay barely anything compared to the UK,' he told Yahoo News.
'Even if you have a look at California, we are getting a much better deal when it comes to fuel costs.'
Thankfully, his car was a plug-in hybrid, so he was able to use electric power as well to ease the cost of fuel. But even when it came to charging, Paul noticed it was about twice the price of a public EV charger in Australia.
'Charging an EV in the UK is outrageously expensive compared to Australia. We paid £0.49/kWh for a slower charger and £0.79/kWh for a fast charger. We pay about half that in Australia to charge an EV on public charging infrastructure,' he said.
So why the huge price difference?
According to NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury, the answer depends on where in the fuel cycle you're looking — and how much tax each country is paying.
'They're probably looking at prices at the bottom of the cycle and going, 'Oh my God', then doing the conversion to pounds, but what they're not taking into consideration is that they pay more tax than we do,' he told Yahoo.
'Australians pay less tax on fuel than Europeans and Kiwis — but more than Americans. That's a big factor.'
At the time of writing, the wholesale fuel price sits at 159.6 cents per litre, with Sydney currently near the bottom of the petrol price cycle.
Khoury said comparing prices in London with the bottom of the cycle here in Australia will, of course, seem cheap.
'We have price cycles, and when we're at the top of the cycle, that gap's going to be a lot smaller. But if it's comparing it to the bottom of the cycle, it's a lot bigger.'
Still, despite how it looks from across the pond, Khoury said many Australians are genuinely struggling to keep up with the weekly cost of fuel.
'We know that there are [people struggling] — especially when they're filling up at the top of the cycle,' he said.
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